The Serbs Chose War, Ruth Mitchel 5. OIL TURNS TO DYNAMITE FROM SCUTARI I made daily and sometimes week-long excursions up into mountains that have never even been completely explored. Once I left the path to eat my lunch in the wilderness. And there, where there had been a recent landslide, I found, exuding from narrow strata of rock, a thick ooze of oil. I waited for two months, so that my movements could be traced only with the greatest difficulty, and then notified the British minister (the British held oil concessions in Albania) that I would like an engineer to consult with me on what could be done about it. His reply was simple and neat: the British oil wells had proved unsatisfactory and had been closed down, and so nothing could be done about it. I then very cautiously got in touch with a member of the Albanian Cabinet in Tirana who had expressed warm feelings for me. His excitement was intense. It had always been suspected that the Rumanian oil fields might have a continuation in Albania: I had probably discovered it. "We must at all costs circumvent the Italians," he said. He would find the right way to handle the business (of course, on a fifty-fifty basis), and we would both grow exceedingly rich. We arranged a code, since he said his letters were opened and read. This alone shows the state of the country. When I should receive a card saying: "Kind regards to all," I would know that he had fixed everything and I was to come at once to Tirana. Now the Italians had carefully surveyed the country and had so tied it up with concessions that they thought it impossible that anyone could find anything they didn't know about. But as they had little capital with which to exploit natural resources, the concessions remained mostly unused. In a fortnight came the message: "Kind regards to all." I hurried to Tirana and to the consultation with the expert he was to have waiting for me. And so, the expert who was to find means of preventing the Italians from seizing my find was-the Italian government engineer in charge of all Italian mining interests in the country. My "friend" had been unable to resist selling me out. I had, of course, been much too cautious to give my would-be partner any inkling of the position of my find. The Italian engineer was now in a nasty spot: he had himself done the country-wide survey and had advised his Government that he had covered every conceivable possibility. The famous Italian charm was therefore turned on full blast. Slowly, with a poker face, I took him over a map as he detailed the terms of concessions in the different parts. He passed my section with the curt information: "Only mineral rights here." (Mineral rights do not include oil.) After we had reached a far-distant part, I said: "All right, the oil concession of my find is not covered by your claims." He turned very white. And, believe it or not, he and my friend then produced a previously prepared agreement stating that I would disclose the position to him and "accept whatever the Italian Government considered the find was worth." I was to sign on the spot. I smiled. Now came, as I expected, the threats: I would be forced to leave the country; his government would see to it that I was hounded out of the Balkans. He hinted even more unpleasant consequences. I glanced at my friend. He did not raise his eyes. "I'm sorry. The proposition does not interest me. I will keep my secret." I rose and, bowing politely, departed. They followed me to my hotel, desperate with eagerness. Here was something inconceivable to them: a woman alone in a foreign land, impervious either to charm, to promises, or to threats. It must be just a trick to raise my price. The Italian began to compromise, even threw himself on my mercy. It was no use. I had made up my mind rather to lose entirely than to give way to Italy. Previous Chapter | Content | Next Chapter The Serbs Chose War, Ruth Mitchel